Texas Woman Jailed for Overdue Library Books

Texas Woman Jailed for Overdue Library Books

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(Dec. 7) -- Authorities threw the book at a woman who had a few overdue library books.

Police in Baytown, Texas, say they locked up Jessekah Few last month after the 25-year-old failed to show up in court for a hearing about unreturned library books.

"It's not a very common charge," Baytown Police Department Detective Alan Cliburn told WSAV.com.

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Proof positive the Corporate State wants its money this Texas woman has been jailed for failure to deal with her overdue books.

The books she states are overdue because of a well documented house fire, where they were consumed along with the home she was living in seven years ago!

Well that’s no way to treat a library book! No wonder the authorities are mad.

Only the State has the ‘right’ to burn books!

The library states it only pursues people with over $200.00 in fines, yet one has to wonder why she is being fined at all in this particular case.

Are the states desperate for cash through code violations and fines in these tough economic times going to far in their pursuit of them? Especially considering most of the people being fined are in the least favorable economic position to pay them, as money that they might inject into the local economy in sustaining themselves is sucked up into state coffers?

Is this a sign of more things to come or just an aberration of Justice in a small Texas town?


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(visit the link for the full news article)

failed to show up in court

...what part of that did you fail to understand?

reply to post by buddhasystem


I'll explain. Regardless of the crime, even if no crime was commited, we put people in jail if they blow off court. This is the way it has to be, otherwise everybody would blow off court. We must have this law and the penalties must be severe.

Originally posted by earthdude
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

I'll explain. Regardless of the crime, even if no crime was commited, we put people in jail if they blow off court. This is the way it has to be, otherwise everybody would blow off court. We must have this law and the penalties must be severe.

It was a rhetorical question

Yea I think if she would have just showed up and
Explained the case would have been settled or even thrown out.
You can’t just not show up for court!

Originally posted by buddhasystem

failed to show up in court

...what part of that did you fail to understand?

What part of being taken to court for over due Library books didn't you get?

No court charges, no failure to appear. See how that works?

Probably not, but the fact remains that had the City's Attorney not taken the case to court, she couldn't be arrested for not showing up.

Originally posted by earthdude
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

I'll explain. Regardless of the crime, even if no crime was commited, we put people in jail if they blow off court. This is the way it has to be, otherwise everybody would blow off court. We must have this law and the penalties must be severe.

Yeah why must we have a law where people are taken to court for over due library books? Even the police admit this to be an incredibly uncommon charge.

Here is an idea, rather than just making the "They programmed me early and well" excuses let's see if we can determine if these overly agressive charges have to do with the municipality being short on cash because of the economic crisis and declining tax base brought on by the real estate crisis and deal with that very real possibility as to why a poor woman who lost books in a home fire that left her homeless is being taken to court now seven years later.

Originally posted by paradiselost333
Yea I think if she would have just showed up and
Explained the case would have been settled or even thrown out.
You can’t just not show up for court!

This approach typically works really well in small conservative texas towns running speed traps, and charging people for not returning library books.

Once again why is the case even in Court?

Let's not forget about the privatized prison industry that have their very own lobbyists in congress lobbying for more laws and harsher penalties, for smaller and smaller infractions every year.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
The books she states are overdue because of a well documented house fire, where they were consumed along with the home she was living in seven years ago!

Okay, someone else's property, arguably EVERYONE else's property since the books are owned by the library, thus by extention the public is damaged while in her home. Are not the people of her community not due some restitution for such; replacement of the books per chance? I mean, I feel sorry for the loss of her home but...
Did insurance pay out for damages?
Did she claim the books within the damages and if so did the insurance cover those?
If the insurance paid for the books and she failed to reimburse the library she's guilty of insurance fraud?

The library states it only pursues people with over $200.00 in fines, yet one has to wonder why she is being fined at all in this particular case.

You're serious? She agreed to be liable for said fines when she applied for a library card. Fines accrue.
Isn't seven years long enough to repay the fines?

Is this a sign of more things to come or just an aberration of Justice in a small Texas town?

Neither. Fines were due; fines she agreed to pay when entering the contract with the library should books be lost or damaged. She was summoned to court and failed to appear. FTA is a jailable offense.

Oops, her bad. She made all the mistakes. But she did nothing wrong?

I find it upsetting when people eschew responsibilies, both personal and civic, and common sense in favor of "screw the man". Can the government go too far? Absolutely. Have they here? Don't think so. She had seven years to come clean and didn't.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler...
Yeah why must we have a law where people are taken to court for over due library books? Even the police admit this to be an incredibly uncommon charge.

Here is an idea, rather than just making the "They programmed me early and well" excuses let's see if we can determine if these overly agressive charges have to do with the municipality being short on cash because of the economic crisis and declining tax base brought on by the real estate crisis and deal with that very real possibility as to why a poor woman who lost books in a home fire that left her homeless is being taken to court now seven years later.

Yeah. Most people pay their fines on time hence the uncommon charge.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Originally posted by earthdude
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

I'll explain. Regardless of the crime, even if no crime was commited, we put people in jail if they blow off court. This is the way it has to be, otherwise everybody would blow off court. We must have this law and the penalties must be severe.

Yeah why must we have a law where people are taken to court for over due library books? Even the police admit this to be an incredibly uncommon charge.

I'm an avid user of my local library. I also pay a lot of taxes in my county to support its library system. Books and DVDs aren't free. We paid for them. Not returning these materials is THEFT, plain and simple. Damaging the DVDs, which happens way too often, is damaging public property. This woman steals $200 in goods, and doesn't even show up in court? Please.

Originally posted by PeasantRebellion
Let's not forget about the privatized prison industry that have their very own lobbyists in congress lobbying for more laws and harsher penalties, for smaller and smaller infractions every year.

edit on 8-12-2010 by PeasantRebellion because: (no reason given)

That is a very important aspect of our developing security and prison complex. These privately owned prisons make huge profits as the state pays to incarcerate the prisoner in them, and then the prison itself uses the prisoners as virtual slave labor, doing services for hire or making products for sale, that then become almost pure profit.

Their stock on the NYSE literally goes up or down based on how many people are in the private prison system!

Excellent point.

Thanks for adding that.

reply to post by abecedarian


Actually truth be told the biggest Library Scofflaw in the United States is none other than it's Founding Father George Washington, who has still failed to return 3 books to the New York City Public Library checked out in 1780.

The fine is currently 24,000 dollars on these books.

So why aren't we trying George Washington in abstentia, ruining his reputation and discrediting him once and for all over these very 'serious' matters.

You have asked a lot of rhetorical questions, that I think you know as well as I do, the article doesn't address.

Don't you think it would be more helpful to research the case and find out the answers rather than just assuming them through rhetorical questions?

For all we know the Insurance Company failed to pay the claim, or did and the Library failed to make note of it.

The question is, are we really going to start taking people to court and charging them for Library Books.

While we are on rhetorical questions what about this woman's taxes? Do you really believe she didn't more than pay for those books in payroll taxes, income taxes, over the counter sales taxes, etc. etc.

No I am sorry my friend, this is just an overly aggressive state, (municipality) looking to economically profit.

Chances are the fines are far in excess of the actual costs of the books. So yes it is looking to profit, and there are no ifs ands or buts about that!

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Originally posted by PeasantRebellion
Let's not forget about the privatized prison industry that have their very own lobbyists in congress lobbying for more laws and harsher penalties, for smaller and smaller infractions every year.

edit on 8-12-2010 by PeasantRebellion because: (no reason given)

That is a very important aspect of our developing security and prison complex.

And mostly irrelevant to the topic which is library books, failure to appear for legal proceedings and being jailed for it... in jail, not prison.

Thanks for adding that.

You're welcome.

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Originally posted by earthdude
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

I'll explain. Regardless of the crime, even if no crime was commited, we put people in jail if they blow off court. This is the way it has to be, otherwise everybody would blow off court. We must have this law and the penalties must be severe.

Yeah why must we have a law where people are taken to court for over due library books? Even the police admit this to be an incredibly uncommon charge.

I'm an avid user of my local library. I also pay a lot of taxes in my county to support its library system. Books and DVDs aren't free. We paid for them. Not returning these materials is THEFT, plain and simple. Damaging the DVDs, which happens way too often, is damaging public property. This woman steals $200 in goods, and doesn't even show up in court? Please.

edit on 8-12-2010 by buddhasystem because: typo

Did George Washington really steal 24,000.00 worth of books, according to the New York Public Library he did, yet the actuall cost of those books was probably less than 10.00.

So did this woman really steal 200.00 in books? All we know is that the library won't pursue it unless a $200.00 threshold has been reached. The truth is the cost of the books might be as low as 10.00 in this case too. Maybe nothing if the books were donated to the Library.

When someone fails to pay the IRS 200.00 that ends up 843.00 with penalties by the time the IRS gets around to noticing and asking, did they really fail to pay 843.00 in taxes?

Your arguments are based on a lot of assumptions, and off of very limited information, that you somehow are applying in very creative ways to make an emotionally driven argument.

Maybe your Library has some books on debating you could try checking out?

It seems like this kind of thing is happening more and more these days. It's like we are being slowly indoctrinated to just accept that the authorities can, at any time or for anything, arrest any of us. Authority here in America (and the rest of the west, more or less), us clamping down, slowly but surely and eventually, it will just be accepted that the authorities can imprison anyone for even the smallest infraction.

If you think about it, we have so many laws on the books, that everyone pretty much breaks the law at some point, even if by accident. This gives the authorities a power to persecute anyone. This is generally tyranny creeps in and siezes control.

I can almost guarantee that we will be seeing more of this and I'm almost willing to bet that the next generation will see even worse, provided that our economy doesn't collapse first, in which case, we will all see much, much worse.

For anyone who is still under the illusion that we are free or that liberty is still a part of our system, think again.


--airspoon

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Court made the correct decision in my opinion.

Makes no difference if its a low price or a high price item. Library books or a brand new BMW. The principle is the same and the court made the right decision. She took responsibility for returning those books and she didn't return them neither did she attend a court hearing. Clearly the woman has no respect. If I loaned her something and she refused to give it back, then I too would be mad about it. I bet she kept the House Insurance to herself and thought "screw you" to the Library. She was out of line in my opinion. She had 7 years to fix the situation but didn't. If she was silly enough to let it go as far as a court case then her own sillyness has entrapped her with a jail sentence. I'd love to know what books she loaned - probably some sort of self help mumbo jumbo.

Originally posted by abecedarian

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler...
Yeah why must we have a law where people are taken to court for over due library books? Even the police admit this to be an incredibly uncommon charge.

Here is an idea, rather than just making the "They programmed me early and well" excuses let's see if we can determine if these overly agressive charges have to do with the municipality being short on cash because of the economic crisis and declining tax base brought on by the real estate crisis and deal with that very real possibility as to why a poor woman who lost books in a home fire that left her homeless is being taken to court now seven years later.

Yeah. Most people pay their fines on time hence the uncommon charge.

Do you have a source that displays the average length of time it takes someone to pay there fines, or is this more self serving guess work on your part in promoting the over litigous police state?

Just wondering!